No Recourse
by SasukeBlade
Summary: All Siry knows is that the flume to Ibara is gone, and the crazy girl before him might just kill him before he gets a chance to explain why. Siry-centric. The only way to move forward is to move on.


I don't own the Pendragon series, or its characters. I do own the unnamed Traveler, who is left unnamed for a reason.

Spoiler warning: If you're not updated on canon, I wouldn't suggest reading this. You probably wouldn't know who this story is even about otherwise.

Pairings: Siry/Saangi, Bobby/Loor, and even some Spader/Loor if you squint.

If the mood takes you, review.

* * *

"Hi," he says after a moment of staring at the Traveler's ring so prominent on the hand that presses the end of the metal capped teak staff to his throat. This is no pick-up weapon, at least from what he can see of the blunt end held cool against his skin. Beautifully crafted, impressive workmanship, better than anything the Jakills ever had. His mind is babbling for his paralyzed lips. "I'm... I'm the Traveler from Ibara." 

She flips the staff away from his neck but does not lower it. His gaze is still locked on that ring, twin to the one his father wore, twin to the ring he wears now. A sharp ache in his chest as she speaks. "Your name?"

"Siry. Look, you're a Traveler, right? You know what's going on?"

He's shaking. Damn it, he's only a kid. He doesn't know what to do, and this lady looks ready to beat him worse than Pendragon ever did. Of course he's shaking.

"I am the Traveler from Zadaa, yes." She still offers no name, but it doesn't even matter.

"I think he's dead," he blurts out, and for the first time the wild girl flinches.

Her eyes are like diamonds as they fix upon his. Siry desperately reviews how many steps it is back to the drill thing, only to break into a sweat when he realizes just how far it is. She'll break his neck before he gets more than a pace.

"Who?" The question comes hard and fast, ricocheted from his own statement. His turn to flinch at the harshness of her voice.

"Pendragon. Your leader. I think he's dead."

It is a credit to her strength that she doesn't drop the staff. He's seen people lose it over less, after all. Instead she slams the polearm against the side of his face. Come to think of it, composure be damned, he wishes she'd dropped the weapon instead.

His vision goes starry as he hits the ground and his ears ring, but he can still hear her shouting in the distance. The ringing lessens though the pain does not; he clutches at his face, and finally makes out what the crazy woman is saying. Ibara. She's shouting it into the flume, over and over again.

The ringing in his ears doesn't have to abate. He knows there won't be a response. It's not like he hasn't tried that already.

o-o-o

"You can't know that he's dead," the silent girl says. It's been three days since Siry has come out of the tunnels, and who knows how many since he first came to Zadaa. The girl -- she was younger than she had first appeared to him in the dim light of the tunnel -- had taken care of the drill before they had surfaced.

Three days since this strange girl-warrior had taken him into the sunlight, and Siry still doesn't know a thing about her, not even a name. Pendragon might have told him, but he stops the memory there. It hurts to think of the man he had come to respect.

"We didn't defeat Saint Dane."

"So you lost the territory." He can practically hear the part she doesn't say, that it doesn't mean he's not alive. But something in Siry's gut tells him that, just like the flume, Pendragon's dead. After he fought so hard for Rayne, Siry can only imagine the fight Second Earth's Traveler had put up for the flume.

"You're right, I don't know if he's dead. Why not go back to the flume and check?" He asks snidely, and regrets the words instantly as a flash of pain crosses her face.

"I will discuss this with my acolyte," she says stiffly, and stands to leave. Most of their conversations, the ones he ends up regretting, end with her discussing matters with the even stranger enthusiastic girl.

Three days since this strange girl-warrior had taken him into the sunlight, and Siry still doesn't know a thing about her, except that maybe she loved Pendragon.

o-o-o

The rings sing out sporadically, fluming communications from Travelers and acolytes from across Halla. It's funny how he finds himself accepting this world easy as anything, his father's stories sharper and clearer in his memory than ever before. It's even stranger reading the words of people from universes other than his own, and more than a little frightening.

First to answer Loor -- Saangi finally takes pity on him and fills him in on the situation of Halla, including her Traveler's name -- is Alder, the knight who had fought so hard for Ibara. She doesn't seemed surprised to see this, examining the writing with all the directness she seems to examine his every word with. A frown curves her lips, creases her brows.

She pinches the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger, and he thinks she must have forgotten his presence because this is the most vulnerable he's seen her since that horrid day in the tunnels. Her eyes close and all the breath whooshes out from her lungs in a great sigh.

Siry wants to ask what it says, but he doesn't. Not his business, after all. He might wear the ring, but that doesn't mean he's one of them.

o-o-o

Loor finally takes pity on the confused Ibara native, in her own special way. And in his own special way of finding trouble, Siry finds himself at the end of her staff once again. This time it's not a death threat.

Training, she calls it. Somehow the daily education in pain from the Traveler and her acolyte hurts more than the death threat ever did. He makes his way back to her hut every day afterwards completely exhausted, yet she leaves for her duty as a Ghee as if the workout were merely a warm up. No wonder Pendragon was so tough, considering his teacher.

o-o-o

More responses arriving in all different forms. The one from the acolyte on Cloral scares him the most, because stuff like that just isn't natural.

At first he drifts, an observer within this whole protecting Halla business. Loor makes no effort to include him, and he makes no effort to bypass her disinterest. It is an existence of sorts. Had Denduron not already been under attack, according to Saangi's loose tongue about her own acolyte communications, Siry is certain Loor would have sent him away long ago. But he is the untested Traveler, and despite the sharp edge to her grief, he knows she will see to it he is as prepared as possible.

His first communication comes as a shock, the strange feeling of the ring expanding and contracting against his hand so foreign he actually yelps. It is in the dead of night, and the lights that emit from the ring play strangely across the walls of Loor's home. By the light of a taper he reads the strange, slanted hand of Elli Winter.

The woman, an elder mother of one, is even newer to the whole concept of Traveling than he. Like him, she is the Traveler of a lost territory. Her understanding of Travelers and Halla runs deeper than his own, and her letter gives him hope. She understands what he is going through, perhaps too well.

_…and it was my fault, you see. I was too afraid to take up the mantle as Quillan's Traveler, and so I passed on the responsibility to my daughter Nevva. Looking back, it was the biggest mistake of my life. One decision, and the events that stemmed from it, and a Traveler was lost. A territory was lost. That's not to say that I could have done any better -- there were so many other places for Saint Dane to corrupt us along the way -- but I should have done whatever I could. Understand that, Siry. Saint Dane is everywhere, and sometimes the situation is hopeless, but that does not mean we should shirk our duty._

He doesn't dare to hope for Ibara, not in the way he dares to hope for Denduron. But in his heart he nurses the secret thought that maybe there will be a second coming, the way Ibara was to Veelox. That maybe he'll be able to make things right again.

o-o-o

When he thinks about it, after he's received his third letter by ring -- an upbeat encouragement from one Vo Spader of Cloral -- Siry realizes that Pendragon never communicated with his fellows this much.

The letters and messages come in by the hour, some of them serious, others comical. Spader regularly sends jokes to the uptight woman, and despite her seriousness, Siry knows that those little spots of humor are often what keep her going through the day. Other encouragements seem a matter of course now; he no longer jumps when his ring does its routine and a letter from someone appears in the center. He knows all the Travelers now, by name if not by face. Alder, Spader, Gunny, Aja (whom he still can't help but worship, if only slightly), Loor, Patrick, and Elli are all his comrades now, if not his friends.

o-o-o

"Loor, he's dead. We need to move on," Saangi's normally cheerful voice is quiet and solemn in the flickering candlelight. Siry presses himself into his bedroll and fakes the deep, even breath of sleep, ears straining for every word.

"We don't know for sure." Her voice is even and measured though he knows she must have said this line a thousand times.

"We'll never know for sure, not with his acolytes incommunicado all the time!" The quick, light footsteps must be hers, because Loor would never pace like that.

"That doesn't mean --" Yet Saangi's voice, higher pitched and spitting out words, usurps the Traveler's.

"Tell them you accept. It's the only way now. If we keep going like this, Saint Dane will have all the territories. You know it's true."

The weariness that punctuates her sentences tells Siry this is an oft repeated argument. "Gunny would be better. Or Alder."

Saangi isn't going to let this go. Having trained with the girl, he knows just how tenacious she truly is. She would have made a good jakill, he thinks, and quickly squishes the thought. He doesn't need to sharpen the ache for Ibara any further. "Neither of them have the experience you do. Gunny doesn't have the battle experience, and now he's handicapped. We have to accept that. Alder doesn't have half the experience of territories you do. You were trained like Pendragon was."

He can hear a slight clink from the next room, like a wind chime. It takes him a minute to connect the sound to the elaborate ties Loor uses for her braids. She must have shaken her head.

"Who was Press's second? Before Pendragon was ready, who was Press's second?"

He hears the clink again, another negative. Who was Press? Was he the old leader?

Saangi's voice lowers to a more sympathetic tone. "It was Osa, wasn't it?"

There is a long silence from the other room, and Siry holds his breath, muscles tensing. Whatever or whoever Osa and Press are, this seems to have pushed the warrior woman to her edge.

"Fine. Tell them I'll do it." Heavier steps than Saangi's, the door creaks. "I hope you're happy."

The door swings slowly shut, each inch given with creaks that sound more like screeches in the sudden stillness of the other room.

Light steps approach his door. Siry exaggerates a snore.

"Stop that," Saangi says, nudging him with her foot. He opens his eyes, noting the way she slumps against the wall. She's a little younger than him, but far older than her years. "I expect you to give her every ounce of respect you can muster."

If possible, her shoulders bow even more. "Loor is the new leader of the Travelers."

o-o-o

If possible, the letters come in even faster. They suggested it, and to a man (or woman) the Travelers agree on Loor. In a way it's both inspiring and saddening, this unity. If the Travelers had been a united front before, Veelox, Quillan, and Ibara might have been saved.

He tries not to think that way. There's no way to fix the past. All they can do is move on.

Loor immediately sends out orders. Elli and Aja are to go to Third Earth in order to help Patrick, whose letters of the bizarre changes that have taken place on that territory bode ill. Loor herself will go to Denduron, where Alder's frantic letters speculate that Saint Dane is after. Gunny and Spader have two tasks: first to find Eelong's second flume, and second, if possible, to find and train the next Traveler from Eelong. Siry's orders are perhaps the least important, only that he continue training here on Zadaa, and then try to find the acolytes from Second Earth.

Before Ibara, before the Travelers, before Halla and Saint Dane and territories, he might have protested such an assignment. Before (he prefers Before, because if he thinks about everything it only reminds him of just how much he's lost) he would have whined and complained, and would have wanted to be on the front lines. Now he recognizes his own weaknesses, knows his need for training. He needs to be able to fight the way Pendragon did. This maturity is part of the New Siry, who only appeared After Ibara. Sometimes he can even taste the capitals as he says them.

"Why do I need to find the acolyte?" He asks Loor as respectfully as he can. He needs to make sure she understands that he's not questioning her orders, that he's only curious.

Loor pauses, and it seems that the crease between her eyebrows is permanent now. "Two things. We must know if he's dead," and Siry can practically hear the scolding Saangi would give her Traveler for those words, "And if he is, which is what I'm beginning to believe, then you must find the new Traveler… if there is one."

At his questioning glance, she elaborates. "The leader of the Travelers before Pendragon predicted that this would be the last generation."

He nods. "Has Second Earth hit its turning point yet?" Siry knows that most of the territories have, but nobody ever speaks of Second Earth.

"We don't know." A quirk of an eyebrow invites him to share the joke of whether hitting a turning point really matters now.

o-o-o

He grows so used to the nightly discussions between Traveler and acolyte that it isn't until Saangi's voice, already naturally higher pitched, reaches a new decibel that he wakes. "Has it ever occurred to you that maybe your precious Pendragon isn't dead? Maybe he ran away, ran away and hid from it all like the coward he is!"

An impossibly loud crack from the next room startles Siry into sitting up. He waits until Loor has left, the door's slam a further testament to just how badly the words struck a nerve, before stepping into the small dining area.

There are tears in Saangi's eyes as she holds one hand to her cheek, an expression that is equal parts stunned and hurt cemented onto her face. He clears his throat, and she startles so badly the wooden platter in her hand falls to the floor.

"I'm sorry," she says, staring at her hands as if she's never seen them before. "I don't know what's gotten into me."

"It's what she fears the most," he says, voice gentle as he can make it, already bending to retrieve the dropped platter. "Nobody likes being confronted with the things they fear."

She finally turns to look at him, the smooth brown skin of one cheek reddened and swelling. "You're right," she whispers. "I don't know what's gotten into me."

o-o-o

No matter what he tries, no response ever comes through the acolyte rings. It's as if the boy from Second Earth disappeared completely. Despite several attempts, sending messages to Mark Dimond and even Second Earth in general, there is no reply. Not even a trip to the territory, accompanied by Saangi, merits a discovery, though the trip in and of itself is rather enlightening.

He finds himself agreeing with yet another of Loor's policies. All Travelers should visit all territories before a problem comes up, that way they aren't operating blind when the time comes. And yet even the short visit to second Earth had Saangi gnawing on her lip.

"Zadaa might be coming to another turning point," she lets slip when they finally return. "That's why we're training here. We're keeping watch."

Still, with no news of Pendragon, and seemingly no way to change that, he asks for an update in orders. The response is immediate: trade places with Loor. Zadaa's problems have grown, to the point where he has to fight off large amounts of quigs in order to reach the flume. It is a credit to his training, created by Loor and built upon by Saangi, that he reaches the flume without too much trouble.

The musical notes drift through the caverns as he reaches the flume entrance, though he keeps his back to the wall opposite the cavern. Saint Dane can use the flumes too, and there is no one here to bring him back from the dead.

Loor drops from the flume, hitting the floor in a tumble and rolling up into a fighter's stance. Her stave is ready, and déjà vu sweeps over Siry at the sight of it. It wasn't so long ago that she beat him for a mere misunderstanding.

He remains out of reach until her eyes adjust to the gloom and she realizes who he is. Upon recognition, he steps forward.

"Anything I need to know?"

He doesn't realize that she's been watching him move until her mouth moves into a half smile. "We did well with you."

"I suppose," he looks down at his body, at the muscles that hadn't been there Before, at the confidence of his own stance.

"Watch your back," she says, but he finds himself watching her back as she leaves the flume, heading for the surface and the sunlight.

o-o-o

Alder's breath is rattling in his lungs as Siry presses both hands to the massive wound on his chest. The knight coughs once, coughs again, voice coming out in a growl.

"Good that you hid," he says, and draws in a deep breath that has to hurt. "If you hadn't, neither of us would have survived."

Bobby Pendragon once willed a fellow Traveler back to life, but Siry Remudi doesn't know if he, too, has that ability.

"This is the way it was meant to be," Alder says, and though Siry shakes his head in silent denial, the man's conviction rocks him to his core. The blood is bubbling up around his fingers, and he suppresses the urge to retch at the warmth of it. "No, truly."

"I shouldn't have left." But neither of them had known Saint Dane would be there. They didn't realize he would be waiting to pick the Travelers off one by one.

"It's my time," the knight says in a whisper. "The last of the old…"

And before Siry realizes, Alder is gone.

o-o-o

The orphan with the Traveler's ring is too young to be embroiled in this mess, all big eyes and gangly limbs and high voice and _innocence_.

Siry sighs, runs a hand through his hair. It needs to be cut, he realizes. His own ring catches on the strands, rips them out. He hardly feels the pain anymore.

"I want to fight," the young one from Denduron says. He can't be more than twelve. _He's not ready_.

"Let me fight," he insists, and Siry wonders if there's even a choice to this anymore.

o-o-o

Zadaa's situation has turned desperate, judging by the report Loor gives him.

_I can't take on the boy_, she writes, her hand small and cramped._ He wouldn't survive a week here._

Siry wants to yell about the unfairness of it all, wants to rip up the paper in a pique, but that's something the Siry from Before would do. The Siry from After, the Siry from Now, is just too tired to expend energy on something so childish.

"Looks like we're on our own," he says to the boy, and that very night the boy awakens to testing attacks in the darkness, the way Saangi used to wake him in what now seems so long ago.

o-o-o

She sends him cheerful letters, encouragement masking the desperation he knows she must really feel.

_It will get better. It will._

He wishes he could believe that.

It's not her words that sustain him, though appreciated. It's the thought that if he doesn't get up, if he doesn't keep fighting, if he doesn't keep trying, he might never see her face again.

o-o-o

They lose Denduron. In the end it's no one's fault. The two newest Travelers, one half-trained, the other hardly at all, against the intellect and cunning of Saint Dane? Looking back Siry is amazed they managed to survive the half a year they spend on the territory.

In the end, it is the tak mine they dug up to save Ibara that does them in. An entire civil war starts over who owns the explosive mineral, and it only grows worse once both sides begin using it.

It seems so unreal at first, still trying to adjust to a new territory, his old guide gone, his new one just too young for all this. Neither of them realize how deep they're getting into the mess until Siry finds himself on one end of a battlefield with a blade capped staff in his hand and a pouch of tak at his belt. The sick feeling of guilt hits him in a flash when he realizes he can't even remember if he's even on the right side, or what he's even supposed to be fighting for.

He fights with all the skill he has, but it's a slaughter. The Milago tribesmen beside him fall one by one, sometimes whole, sometimes not. He watches the slaughter and creates his own, a rampart of the dead at his feet.

Blood streams freely into his eye as he slices another man's throat, ruins a son's arm for life, hamstrings a brother before ramming the butt of the staff into a father's gut. A sword tears a gash into his side before he can block, turns to fatally cut into his belly but the explosive tak does its job, and if he ever gets the red stains out of these clothes it won't even matter because he'll never wear them again.

Exhaustion does him in. The adrenaline runs dry. He slows -- stutters -- stops.

He never sees the attack coming.

The boy has to drag him off the field, half-conscious and protesting. This isn't any place for a boy, after all.

He lays still as the dead in the small cot that was set up for him for days. At night he thinks of thinks of Zadaa, thinks of Loor, thinks of _her, _and by day he closes his eyes and turns his face from the sun. He heals slowly but surely, surprising the nurses at the makeshift field hospital. On any other man, Siry's wounds would have been fatal.

He's stable within a month, walking within another, recovering fully within the next, clearing a bed desperately needed by another man, freeing a nurse for the other wounded. And there are many, many wounded. Too many.

In the time he is there recovering, three months in all, Siry never bothers to ask whether they won or not. It doesn't matter. Win or lose, the population of Denduron is on the edge of annihilation now. Saint Dane has won.

"There's nothing we can do anymore," he tries to explain to his young charge. "It's over. We're done."

"We're only done if we give up!" The boy shoots back, angry but composed. Siry rocks back on his heels. The boy has grown, is growing still. He'll be a man all too soon.

"Denduron is lost," he tries again, but the newest Traveler, the last Traveler, refuses to see it.

His small face is set into determined lines as he continues. "Veelox had a second turning point! Ibara's undetermined, and even though Zadaa's first point went well doesn't mean the second one will. There's always another chance! As long as you have hope, there's always another chance!"

And suddenly, suddenly, Siry sees a way they might outlast Saint Dane.

The next morning the Traveler from Ibara plays the peacemaker in the first of what promises to be several talks between the warring factions of Denduron. It may not be much, but it is the start of something new.

The territory may be lost, but there is still hope.

There is always hope.

o-o-o

He cuts a surprising figure when he enters Loor's home for the first time in months. Gaunt from the lack of food on the territory, muscles atrophied somewhat in the months of disuse, head closely shaved, his scars and what muscles remain stand out against the paleness of his skin.

The boy is greeted with open arms, a woman he identifies as the motherly Elli scooping him into a hug. He lets out a muffled protest, pressed into the woman's bosom, and at first the movement of the muscles on Siry's face surprises him until he realizes what's going on. It's been so long since he's smiled.

Loor is there, and Aja as well. He bows deferentially to them both, Loor for her leadership and Aja for her status on his home territory. Patrick is not present, keeping watch over the tentative peace of his own territory. For a moment Siry is saddened at the loss of companionship: it would be nice to have them all here, together.

A knock at the door startles them all. Though Siry is nearest, he moves aside so that Loor can answer. From the wariness with which she approaches the entrance, he suspects she is as surprised as the rest of them.

Loor opens the door quickly, the better to catch a potential attacker off-guard. The frown disappears instantly as she finally recognizes whoever remains outside.

"Hobey-ho mate," A cheerful voice says from outside. "It's good to see you!" Siry finds his jaw dropping as Loor is enveloped into a massive bear hug, courtesy of a man who can only be Vo Spader.

A man with darker skin than the tan Spader pushes at the Traveler from Cloral's back. "Move aside you overgrown boy," he laughs. "I want to see them too."

"But how did you know to come right now?" Aja asks, her voice amazed even as she stands to greet the two.

Spader winks as he releases Loor. "You know what they say."

The man, Gunny, Siry finally recalls, finishes the sentence for the happy-go-lucky Traveler. "The flumes deliver us not only where we need to be, but when."

The room falls into a happy buzz of greetings, introductions as commonplace as reunions. The grief is palpable as the rest learn what has become of Alder, yet the warmth each adult extends to the boy is genuine. For the first time in months Siry is proud to be a Traveler.

The meeting turns serious as news is related, Travelers caught up. Third Earth is safe, as is Zadaa for the time being. Eelong is likely to be left alone. The plans that will transform Veelox into Ibara are already set in motion, and Patrick is keeping a careful eye on the all three of the Earths. Spader is to go to Cloral, Gunny to First Earth, Elli to Quillan. The rest are to go as they see fit.

He can sense Loor's caution in giving orders, and understands the woman's restraint. It's not a game they're playing, after all. There's no Bobby Pendragon to hide behind like there was before.

Siry thinks long and hard on their next step. Denduron has toughened him, the loss of Alder still fresh in his heart. There are consequences to every choice, both immediate and long reaching. He can't use his inexperience as an excuse forever.

The decision is easier than he expects. He'll take the boy to Quillan and let Elli mother him a bit. Maybe let Elli mother _him_ a bit.

o-o-o

Loor's little house is nearly bursting at the seams with all the people packed into it. With Gunny, Spader, Siry, and the boy packed into one little room, it's not surprising that the air is stuffy and hot.

He finds himself sitting at the table in the front room after another fit of restlessness. It's hard to close your eyes when all you see in your dreams are horrors.

The door creaks, startling him from the half stupor he'd fallen into. Siry straightens from his slumped position in the darkness, watching almost disbelievingly as the face he's waited to see for so long finally appears.

Her features are illuminated by the moonlight pouring in from the solitary window by the table. The eyes, nose, lips he's dreamed of are different somehow, older. And yet together they form a picture that is unmistakably her. His teacher, his confidant, his staunchest supporter, the girl he's thought of every day for the past seven months and more. Saangi.

"Who's there?" she asks softly, and he blinks in surprise. But of course her senses would be that attuned. She steps forward, sensing no threat. "Siry?"

"How did you know?" he says, voice emerging as a mere whisper. Judging by the occasional loud snort from the room he'd left, noise is not an issue, yet it his throat threatens to close with some unnamed emotion. "I didn't write to say I was coming." She wasn't even here today; according to Loor the girl was off dealing with some business or other

Another step nearly takes her out of the moonlight and into the shadows beyond, but part of him can't bear to see that happen. He pushes his chair back from the table and stands, hands steadying himself in a sudden surge of weakness. The moment passes, but by the change in her breathing he can tell that Saangi can sense the difference in him.

"I know Loor's presence, and neither Aja nor Elli give off that much of a presence, and it was too familiar to be anyone else's, so--" The words become superfluous as strength fills him, or perhaps that's desperation making his heart pound erratically. He's waited so long to see her face.

Two steps from the table and he's before her, looking down into her eyes. He's always been taller than her, yet in all the time that he's known her she's never seemed so delicate. A hand cups her jaw, tilts her face upward, another arm snakes around her waist to draw her closer, as close as he possibly can. He lowers his head until his lips meet hers.

The kiss is glorious. Seven months he's waited for this chance, and suddenly it's all he can do to not deepen it, not force her, not startle her with his feelings.

He's kissed other girls before, back on Ibara, but it was never like this. His senses are powerfully aware of everything, from the way the small of her back arches under his palm to the way her breasts press against his chest as she deepens the kiss. He breaks for air, the hand on her jaw moving to frantically trace her features, to affirm that _yes, she's really here, it's really her you're kissing_ before he kisses her again. Her own hand reaches up to trace patterns on the back of his neck, the other to grip the cloth of his tunic tighter, to pull herself even closer. With his eyes closed, each touch and taste is startlingly delightful.

In the face of so much grief, this sudden reaffirmation of life soothes something deep inside of him, an ache he hadn't realized existed until it was gone.

It won't matter if he dies tomorrow, or next week, or the week after. He'll have had what he wanted from life.

o-o-o

Quillan is bleak and gray and more watchful than ever, yet Elli still risks showing them the destroyed warehouse of Mr. Pop. So much work and effort to preserve the vibrancy of the past, and all of it gone to waste now because of one mistake.

"Maybe it was wrong of us to try to make the future into a copy of the past," the older woman says, suddenly fragile in the face of so much loss, eyes fixed on the sky as the boy examines the ruin. "Maybe we should have been using the past to create a new future instead."

Later, once they are safely ensconced from any prying eyes or ears, she shows them the tiny printing press she saved from the attacks. "I thought, considering your history, it might be best to let you decide what to do with this." In the face of so much adversity, there is still a quirk to her lips at the joke.

He may not be the best Traveler, but if there's anything Siry knows how to do, it's how to stage an insurrection. Quillan may have lost Mr. Pop, but it has not lost its hope.

The tenacity to which people cling to life, the determination to succeed at all costs, the hope that springs eternally, that is what will undo Saint Dane. For every turning point on a territory that goes wrong, another on that same world will go right. For every society brought to its knees, another will rise up and fight back.

He and the Travelers will see to that, for every territory, for as long as they live and after.

There is always a reason to fight.

There is always hope.


End file.
